


Dreams of Snow and Ice

by Ozma



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Black Mage - Freeform, F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 19:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4758776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozma/pseuds/Ozma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ishgard is the land of death. </p><p>Takes place during 2.4 and Heavensward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams of Snow and Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:  
> 1\. While I dislike making second-person stories so specific, this story was written with a female Black Mage character in mind. I believe I've kept it vague enough that it does not have to be female, however, the theme behind it definitely prefers black mages.  
> 2\. Igeyorhm is difficult. She is easily the least fleshed out of the Ascians we've met so I've had to make extrapolations. You may remember from her battle that she has extremely powerful ice-based magic.  
> 3\. You may notice some narrative style dissonance from the beginning of the story to the end. This is very intentional.

Ysayle is ice; hard, slick, and impossible to grasp for any period of time. She stubbornly clings to her dreams like a stalactite in a frigid cavern, but she breaks easily. Once a single crack appears, she shatters.

While you wax poetic, perhaps you’d consider yourself hail. Powerful, efficient, sculpted by situation, and brutally refined by your responsibilities. You are not terribly different from the strange Elezen woman who embraces the ice to her very core.

Ysayle kisses you first, pushing you down into the snow below her. She is hard, passionate, demanding and easily overwhelms you, refusing to let you draw a breath.

“I need you.” You can hear her pant desperately when you finally stop for breath, the snow around you melting from the heat of your bodies.

She is Iceheart and she is terrified. Someday there may be no more Ysayle, only a frigid warrior who holds within her the lover of dragons. She understands her fate and accepts it, but its burden is heavy - as is yours.

When she moans as she arches her back over you, weight balanced over your abdomen and hair falling over your chest, she loses control of her aether. Shiva draws from the environment, turning the snow to frost until it bites into your flesh and your breath cannot leave your lungs. Ysayle recovers quickly and apologizes for her distracted moment of weakness.

“I’ve had worse from falling.” You tease, for her sake.

Your relationship ends through inevitable circumstance, well before it can ever truly begin.

On the broken, aether-stained plains of death, you meet her again, Midgardsormr at your side and in your mind. You are like her now, you think, and perhaps you can understand her plight; for Ysayle and the Heretics, a bond with the Father of Dragons makes you almost an object of worship.

You plead wordlessly for her to treat you as she always has; you do not need another person revering you as a powerful, distant icon. Ysayle is not only Iceheart and you are not only the Warrior of Light.

You turn away from Ysayle; as you leave, stalactites crumble around you, littering the empty fields.

Igeyorhm is snow. Delicate, cautious, and unbelievably resilient. Once the foundation is laid, she remains perpetually. Igeyorhm melts slowly and steadily, but she never breaks.

You sit quietly together in high, secret places, unwilling to be disturbed. She enjoys oddly simple things: the way you move and breathe, the way your hair blows in the wind, the way your expressions change so readily, the way your uncovered eyes freely show emotion.

“Mortal forms are so strange.” Her gloved fingers boldly and curiously stroke your face. She favors touch, a bonding she is incapable of in her true form. Sometimes it feels as if you spend hours together, as she learns your warm body and you learn her cool aether.

You try to kiss her, just once. Igeyorhm does not move or respond as your lips brush the pale, cool flesh below her mask.

For what seems to be an eternity after you remove your mouth, the Ascian is silent. Your heart beats heavily in your ears and you try to draw away in vain hope that she does not recognize how awkward you feel at your mistake.

“No, not like this.” She predicts your withdrawal and pulls you closer than she ever has before, pressing your face to her chest. “This host – not like this.” She repeats and brushes her hand through your hair.

Igeyorhm, too, is taken from you by inevitable circumstance.

There is no sadness or regret. There are no apologies as she burns your core with her magic. She has her duty and you have yours.

Even as Thordan watches, awaiting his entry into Azys Lla, she touches you. One hand brushes your clothing, exposing previously-hidden flesh; she moves her fingers across your face, over your shoulder, down your arm, playing at your palm. This is the only moment you are ever, truly, at her mercy.

As Igeyorhm turns away, her aether presses yours, marking it softly - an eternal footprint in undisturbed powder.

By your hand the auracite shatters, white shards falling silently to the floor.

Now the dreams of snow and ice have faded **.** Only the hail remains, seared to sleet by burning light.

_Crack._

The avalanche breaks free.

 _How much more?_   You demand of a silent Goddess.

Powder cascades over the mountains in a free fall.


End file.
